THE GARDEN OF CARLTON HOUSE
The state of the Court at that time is abundantly pictured in numerous memoirs, diaries, journals, etc., not the least among which is that of Miss Burney, Jane’s contemporary and sister authoress. George III. had one very striking virtue—striking in his time and position and especially in his family—he seems to have lived a good domestic life. He had been married young, to a princess who had no beauty to recommend her, and his first feelings on seeing her had been those of disappointment, but being a sensible, kindly man, he had soon learnt to value the good heart and nature of the girl who had come so far to marry a man she had never seen. Their numerous family linked them together, and though the sons were a constant source of trouble and notorious in their wild lives, the tribe of princesses seem to have endeared themselves to everyone by their gracious manners. Poor old George himself, with his well-meant, “What? What? What?” and his homely ways, could never offend intentionally, and the “sweet queen,” as Miss Burney so fulsomely calls her, though fully conscious of her own dignity, and not disposed to make a fuss about the hardships inseparable from the position of her waiting-women, was yet at the bottom kind-hearted too.
As for most of the princes, however, their ways were a byword and scandal. In every contemporary book we read of their being drunk, and otherwise disgracing themselves.
The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were the worst, and the Dukes of Clarence and Kent seem to have been the best. At Brighton, where the Prince of Wales had established his pavilion, orgies of drink and coarseness went on that disgusted even those accustomed to very free manners; the princes appeared in public with their mistresses, and reeled into public ball-rooms. The Prince’s treatment of his own ill-used wife is well known. Purely from caprice, and without a shadow of justification, she, the mother of his only child Princess Charlotte, was dismissed from her home, and forbidden any of the privileges or respect due to her rank, a course of treatment which made England despised among the nations. Of the other two we read:—
“The duke of Kent is certainly one of the most steady looking of the princes, perhaps he may be heavy, but he has unquestionably the most of a Man of Business in his Appearance.”
And Horace Walpole says—
“My neighbour, the Duke of Clarence, is so popular, that if Richmond were a borough, and he had not attained his title, but still retained his idea of standing candidate, he would certainly be elected there. He pays his bills regularly himself, locks up his doors at night, that his servants may not stay out late, and never drinks but a few glasses of wine. Though the value of crowns is mightily fallen of late at market, it looks as if His Royal Highness thought they were still worth waiting for; nay, it is said that he tells his brothers, that he shall be king before either; this is fair at least.” He was afterwards William IV.
The Prince of Wales mixed freely in political intrigues of the worst kind, and took part in faction politics. As a man he was a contemptible creature without character or intellect, but, in spite of all his faults, he had a certain number of admirers, because as a young man he was graceful and obliging in manners, and personal graciousness in a sovereign covers a multitude of sins.